fading away
by huemid
Summary: I am sin, and you are the psychosis within. —Gray/Juvia


**fading away  
** by _huemid_  
i am sin, and you are the psychosis within

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He sits in silence.

(It is cold in his heart and he does not know how to deal with it. He is shattered glass and a broken soul; a city of ashes and dust.)

The blue-haired woman slides onto the couch next to him. "Gray, why are you here?"

"I-I..." Gray pauses for a second, hollow eyes wandering to anywhere, _anywhere_ except where the rain woman sits. He stares down at his bottle of beer and glares at his distorted reflection in the dark glass. "I don't really know."

(She is rain, and she will always be. She only comes when it is dark and stormy and cold, and she leaves the ruins of an empire in her wake.)

Juvia purses her lips. "What are you doing to yourself, Gray?"

"You know the answer."

Her pale lips turn upwards, into a ghost of a smile. "Why, Gray? What happened to the old you?"

Gray feels a shadow of irritation flare in his veins, and he glares at her. " _You_ , out of all people, should know," he sneers, but even he is not deceived by his own anger. He slouches in his seat, eyes shadowed. These days, he is too far empty to feel anything. "You know what? Forget it."

"Gray. Who are you, really?"

He doesn't bother to answer her, and instead, closes his eyes. He feels tired — tired of everything that has happened to him. Tired of the whole world. Cold lips brush against his own, and he can feel a slight breeze travel inside the dark room. The night is cold and unforgiving, and as he sleeps, he dreams of a blue-haired girl and forgotten happiness — memories of a love once beautiful.

When he opens his eyes, it is half-past three in the morning, and she is gone.

(Maybe they were never meant to be. Or maybe, they were. Maybe they were only meant to last for a single second, fleeting, gone in the next second.)

If this is what happens after love, Gray never wants to fall in love again.

(It'll ruin him, again.)

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Once upon a time, there was a man.

They called him Gray. They claimed that Gray was his name.

But it wasn't, really.

Gray was what he became — not just a name. It was who he was. Perhaps that was why they called him Gray. Because he was.

He was Gray; Gray like the dirty, cracked concrete sidewalks. Gray like the sky before a storm. Gray like the cold ashes of a dying fire. Gray like the metallic steel of handcuffs.

Gray like heartbreak.

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Staring into his cup of coffee, Gray sighs.

"Dammit, Gray! Answer me!" Natsu angrily yells at Gray, attracting the attention of customers nearby.

"Natsu, stop. Everyone's looking at you," Gray tiredly replies, too hungover to care.

"Do you think I _care_ about what other people think? Gray, if you don't—"

" _Shut up_ , Natsu. Just — Just _shut up_ , already."

Natsu stops talking to Gray, but continues to stare furiously at him.

Gray goes back to gazing into his coffee cup, wisps of smoke curling from the dark liquid, until he sees her. _Her_. Her face stares up into his, her cerulean eyes looking up mockingly toward him, and she smirks. He can hear her voice echo in his mind until he can't hear anything but _Who are you, really? Who are you? Gray, who are you, really? Who are you? Who are_ —

The dark-haired man angrily slams his cup into wooden table, black coffee spraying everywhere, including Natsu's shirt, and Natsu screeches, "Gray, what the _hell_?" Gray can't begin to care, though. He quickly walks out of the coffee store, leaving Natsu behind, and bitterly stomps on the pavement as he wanders away, to anywhere, _anywhere_.

Still, as he lights a cigarette and the smoke drifts around him, the phrase haunts him, reverberating throughout his mind until Gray can hardly control himself from going crazy — and _still_ , it echoes in his mind, mockingly calling out,

" _Who are you, really?_ "

(He doesn't know the answer, really. And it hurts like hell to have her be the one to ask him that.)

Frustratedly, Gray slams his fist into the graffiti-covered wall, and watches apathetically as his knuckles bleed onto the stone pavement.

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Three empty bottles of beer lay on the dirty rug, and as he moves to open up a fourth one, his cellphone rings. He checks the caller ID — it's Erza. He ignores the phone.

After the ringing ends, and Gray is taking a swig from the glass bottle, the phone starts ringing once more — Erza, again. Sighing, Gray resigns himself to his fate — Erza will never give up once started — and answers the phone. "Hello?"

"This is Gray, right?"

"Yes."

He can hear Erza start to yell into the phone. Grimacing, he inches the phone away from his ear. Her shouting continues. "Gray, what were you doing today? Natsu told me all about it. Seriously, Gray, what _were_ you thinking? You can't just continue moping in your apartment! After—" She cuts herself off, and quiets down. "After _that_ happened, you've been acting so — so _empty_. Like a shell of your old self. Gray, you know we've all been affected, and we're still very heartbroken over it. But Gray, you—"

"Erza," Gray cuts in, his voice monotone and cold. "Please don't call me again. I'm busy." He ends the call and throws his phone onto the floor.

She does not call him again, which Gray is thankful for.

Suddenly, while he is drinking his beer, a sharp, searing pain rushes through Gray's mind, and he groans in agony. The glass bottle drops to the floor, shattering into sharp amber shards, and the brown liquid seeps into the the floor, staining the carpet brown. And he can feel her taunting gaze among the sharp pieces of glass, her lips forming into a perfect circle, whispering _Who are you? What are you doing to yourself?_

In a fit of rage, he smashes another bottle against the floor, and in the sound of breaking glass and the trickling of beer and the total silence afterward except Gray's sharp breathing, he can hear her whisper, mocking him:

"Gray. Who are you?"

He feels hot tears running from his eyes, but is foreign to Gray, this feeling, this sadness, because for a long time, the only thing he has ever felt is emptiness, a broken hollowness.

And for the first time, Gray doubts himself.

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"Juvia, we'll be together forever, right?"

"No, Gray, we _are_ forever."

She smiles at him, brushes away his tears, and disappears.

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(and maybe we could be forever, you and i)

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End file.
